Jean Morin, the big cheese at Fromagerie du Presbytère, says dairy farming is his job, but cheesemaking is his passion. He and his famous cheeses are credited with breathing new life into the tiny village of Sainte-Élizabeth-de-Warwick, about a two-hour drive east of Montreal. In Ottawa, Morin’s cheeses can be found at McKeen Metro in the Glebe, the Piggy Market in Westboro, International Cheese in the ByWard Market and La Trappe à Fromage shops in Gatineau.Nick Simoneaux / Pix M Photo Video

They arrive by bike, motorcycle, walker and car to Sainte-Élizabeth-de-Warwick, Que., population 374, and, truly, not much more than a crossroads amid the lush green farmland. By 10 a.m., dozens have set up their lawn chairs or claimed spots at the scattering of picnic tables.

By about 6 p.m., nearly 4,000 have made the pilgrimage from near and far, parking in outfields and getting rides on tractor-pulled wagons.

The destination is a church, but the gathering — with wine, Neil Young songs and plenty of merriment — is not religious, unless, of course, you consider fine cheeses worthy of devotion, which many in the crowd clearly do.

Cheese juries have commented that the outstanding quality of the Fromagerie du PresbytÃ¨re cheese stems from the superior milk from the grass-fed Holstein cows.Fromagerie du Presbytere

The power and glory of the tiny village is due almost entirely to one man, Canada’s leading cheese artisan, Jean Morin.

A diminutive figure in shorts and running shoes, he’s easy to miss in the milling crowds. At one moment, he’s moving bales of hay that block traffic. Next, he’s delivering a platter of his award-winning cheeses to some friends. Now he’s unpacking more toilet paper.

“We started these Festive Fridays six or seven years ago, and then it just took off,” says Morin. “In truth, I’m a little bit frightened by the crowds. I hope we have enough bathrooms. I hope we’ve thought of everything.”

Bleu dâÃlizabeth cheese is an award winner.

If anyone has the foresight to think of everything, it’s Morin.

A fourth-generation dairy farmer, who still lives in the back of his great-grandfather’s home (his mother lives in the front and his three sons on properties on either side), Morin got into cheesemaking nearly 25 years ago, as a part of a Quebec co-operative that makes L’Ancêtre organic cheddar.

“Back then, there wasn’t as much interest in organic,” he recalls. “We started selling our cheese mainly in Vancouver, and it moved east.”

About the same time, Morin made a trip to the Jura area of France.

“I tasted some cheese and it became my passion. I asked my friends to make fine cheeses, but they said, ‘No, they took too long.’ ” He started taking cheesemaking courses in France, Vermont and Quebec.

“When it’s your passion, you learn fast,” he says.

He asked the local banks to loan him the money to start his own fromagerie, but they turned him down. He started making Champayeur, an organic bloomy rind cheese that he named after an old-fashioned dairy farming method, in borrowed space in another nearby facility.

Not having his own building, he reserved the village church for the launch of his first cheese, in 2008.

“I invited the priest and he whispered that he would like a blue cheese,” says Morin. “I said ‘Why not?’ ”

Later that same year, he launched Bleu d’Élizabeth. Three months later, it won the gold medal at Quebec’s Caseus cheese awards. With some funds and new fame, he opened his own artisan cheesemaking facility in the abandoned rectory directly across the road from his family farm, calling it, appropriately, Fromagerie du Presbytère. The pace and the successes have only accelerated.

While most fine cheesemakers specialize in a certain style of cheese, Morin is master of many.

“When I wake up in the morning, the first thing I think about is, ‘how can I do it better?’ ” he says.

A tractor ferries visitors from a parking lot to Fromagerie du PresbytÃ¨re during Festive Fridays, which are held each week from April to October.Photos by Nick Simoneau /
Pix M Photo Video

During Festival Fridays at Fromagerie du PresbytÃ¨re, about 4,000 visitors flock to the property to picnic, listen to music and sample Morin’s award-winning cheese.Nicolas Simoneau /
Pix M Photo Video

During Festival Fridays at Fromagerie du PresbytÃ¨re, about 4,000 visitors flock to the property to picnic, listen to music and sample Morin’s award-winning cheese.Nicolas Simoneau /
Pix M Photo Video

During Festival Fridays at Fromagerie du PresbytÃ¨re, about 4,000 visitors flock to the property to picnic, listen to music and sample Morin’s award-winning cheese.Nicolas Simoneau /
Pix M Photo Video

He wanted to make a firm farmhouse-style cheese, but that type needs to be aged for months or years, requiring more space. He built an addition on the back of the rectory.

A year later, he launched Louis D’or, an organic washed-rind cheese made in huge 40-kilogram wheels and named after his great-grandfather’s farm, Louis D’or. Once aged, with the rounds turned and washed three times a week, it won best cheese in Canada at the Canadian Cheese Grand Prix in 2011.

“The milky richness of this cheese is a tribute to the organic milk with which it is made,” noted the jury.

The wheels of Louis D’or submitted to the Grand Prix were aged for nine months.

“A real cheese connoisseur would prefer it at two to three years, but we can’t keep it that long,” says Morin, who nonetheless has a few wheels and sells golden wedges of three-year-old Louis D’or at his shop.

Next was the rich and creamy Laliberté. Continuing Morin’s unprecedented run, it was crowned best cheese in Canada at a recent Canadian Cheese Grand Prix.

“Named after the famous sculptor from Sainte-Élizabeth-de-Warwick, this triple crème with its tender bloomy rind encases an unctuous paste,” said the jury. “Mushroom and cream when young, it stuns with hints of grasses and root vegetables when it ages.”

While he always takes time to savour his cheeses, Morin has not stopped to sit on his laurels. He next launched two more cheeses and invited a sheep’s milk cheesemaker, Marie-Chantal Houde of Fromagerie Nouvelle France, to share his facilities. (“Another fromagerie helped me out when I was starting and couldn’t afford my own place,” he explains.) Houde’s cheeses went on to win awards and Morin had, once again, outgrown his space.

Morin built a special facility inside the old village church just to age the 40-kilogram wheels of Louis Dâor, which won best cheese in Canada in 2011. It has since won multiple other awards.Nick Simoneaux /
Pix M Photo Video

Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on your point of view, while the appreciation of fine cheeses is blooming, church attendance is withering. The graceful white Catholic church next door had just a handful of aging parishioners and was out of money. Morin recently bought it for $1, then spent $1 million raising the old wooden floor, creating an airy two-level space with a special-events room under the arched ceiling upstairs, a high-tech cheese-aging room downstairs, and, through a side entrance, a multi-stalled washroom with white-washed barn-board decor worthy of a trendy boutique hotel.

What you might miss, at first, is that a small chapel has been preserved at the back of the building, with the original cross, confessional, votives and religious plaques, including one donated by Morin’s grandfather. Massive amounts of red tape had to be untangled in order to de-sanctify, and then re-sanctify, the structure.

“He won’t tell you, but he didn’t have to do that,” says Jean-François Michaud, a filmmaker for the Radio Canada TV show La Semaine Verte and a friend and admirer.

“He did that for maybe 20 people.”

Similarly, the Friday events that inspire thousands to make the pilgrimage to the fromagerie seem to stem more from Morin’s connection to his community than entrepreneurship.

“The people in the village kept asking why I didn’t make cheese curds,” says Morin. “I said, ‘No, I’m a fine cheesemaker.’ ” But he recognized that curds are a key part of the culture of his dairy-farming area, which is south of the St. Lawrence River midway between Montreal and Quebec City. (Several nearby towns, including Victoriaville, Drummondville and Warwick each claim to be the birthplace of poutine.) So, half a dozen years ago, he started Festive Fridays in which the three stages of curdmaking are celebrated, with the mild whey cheese released at 4 p.m., blocks of unsalted cheese about 5:15 p.m., and the curds at 6 p.m.

“We started getting about 800 people,” says Morin. “They’d sit here all day. Now we get about 1,500 people on an average Friday, and thousands for special days.”

An early August poutine event, for example, attracted more than 4,000, but it wasn’t a moneymaker for Morin: it raised $17,000 for a local hospital. Area artisanal bakers, winemakers, farmers and even trendy pop manufacturers from the area are invited to set up stands around the shady grounds to sell and spread the news about their wares.

One of the things Morin’s thinking about right now is his next divine cheese.

“I’m almost ready,” he says. “I took another course to upgrade what I need to know. It’s going to be like a Munster.”

Cheeses aged in monks’ cellars around the Alsace town of Munster are renowned for being soft in texture but strong in taste.

“I hope it will be the smelliest of my cheeses,” says Morin. “I’m going to call it Les Pieds de Dieu — like the feet of God.”

If you go

Where: Sainte-Élizabeth-de-Warwick is about a two-hour drive east of Montreal.

When: The cheese shop at Fromagerie du Presbytère (fromageriedupresbytere.com) is open seven days a week. Festive Fridays are held each week from April to early October.

Cycling: Warwick, a 10-minute car drive northeast of the fromagerie, is on a scenic 70-kilometre paved bike path called Parc linéaire des Bois-Francs.

Where to stay: Le Gîte du Champayeur (champayeur.qc.ca) is a charming B&B that backs onto the bike path in Warwick and provides excellent breakfasts, bicycle storage and a hot tub.

Nearby attractions: Vignoble Les Côtes du Gavet (vignoblegavet.com) is a lovely winery about a 10-minute drive southeast of Warwick that even offers a line of beauty products made with grapeseed extract. Parc Marie-Victorin (parcmarievictorin.com) is a large botanical garden about a 15-minute drive south of Warwick.

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